Here's the thing the for me. I turned to my girlfriend the other night and said, "I'm going to start collecting zombie DVDs". This was after we had spent some time perusing Comcast's On Demand movie offerings and scanning through my meager collection of mostly artsy foreign-language and horror DVDs in an attempt to find something palatable enough for both of us to watch. My utterance rang a little bell for her and she asked me with deadpan seriousness if I was indeed going to pursue such a course of action.
Actually, all she said was, "Really?".
But I know how to interpret her response.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because I heart zombies." I replied.
"And how long have you known that you "heart" zombies?" she inquired.
"Ever since I saw the movie, 'Zombie'" I answered.
I know this recounting might sound somewhat contrived, but this is in fact very close to the the actual dialog. Although, truthfully, it was all somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
Yes, for me 'Zombie" by Fulci was the turning point. Sure I'd seen the early zombie offerings, "Night of the Living Dead", "I Walked With a Zombie", "White Zombie", and those are very very good movies indeed, but "Zombie" just rang a bell for me. It is the first 'official' zombie title in my collection.
I explained all this to my girlfriend, who is quite well-versed in popular entertainment, particularly books, film and music. And indeed, she took control of the TV remote (henceforth referred to as 'the clicker') and proceeded to race back through On Demand's alphabetically-arranged movies while I expounded upon my fascination with zombie movies. She eventually came to the 'D's' stopping at the title, "Dead Alive".
"And you've never seen this?" she asked incredulously in the jocular spirit of oneupmanship.
I hung my head.
Since my initial viewing of "Dead Alive", I've found myself paying close attention to DVD and Blue-Ray bins in stores. I've visited several zombie-related blogs and wikipedia pages, and I've read numerous IMDB plot synopses (more on this in another post). I've decided to take this whole 'I heart zombies' thing beyond its cute fascination and run with it. My plan is to push forward with this thing and naturally to note, log, and share my findings here.
I've no grand scheme or mission statement to unravel. I've no plan to make daily posts about my musings on all things zombie. I really just want to watch some zombie movies, put together a smart collection of films, and write about it. After all, sometimes you just wanna write. And if you're going to do that, you might as well write about the things you like or the things you want to know more about. Sometimes you just want to share that enthusiasm and exploration.
